Michael Hibbard

All about the books I write, along with random thoughts, and babbling.

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Intelligent Design, Evolution and Creation

I have been researching world religions for most of my life. A great deal of it is to understand myself, but also understand the rest of the world. We have so much discord over religion, it requires a lifetime to understand from where it sprang to where it will go.

There is only one answer — and each religion has pieces to the larger spiritual puzzle.

So today I felt that I would discuss why Intelligent Design and Evolution can exist — which is the basis for the Waking Dream Mythos — the Way of the Weird.

First, we must remember that we have free will, so we shouldn’t be concerned about fate and “god’s path”. We should be concerned with the path we create for ourselves, each and every day. I liken the idea of being “fated” or “destined” to be someone disheartening. I don’t want my life to have been scripted by someone I can’t see or understand. I want to be the captain of my own ship and sail where I please. If I am not in control, then what is the point?

Second, why don’t we entertain the idea that the Creator or Intelligent Designer, simply wrote the rules for the universe to be structured. Say for a moment that the Creator was a game designer and he simply created the framework for us to play in. I think Richard Back said it best when he said, “We are the otters of the universe.” The Creator doesn’t need to be a chess player. He can simply be interested in creating a world and seeing how it unfolds according to his design — his equation.

I have played far too many MMORPGs and if you spend time in them enough, you can see how they ultimately model our world, and how they evolve without the intervention of the players. Players form guilds, create an economy, form relationships and ultimately mold the game to their will. This is also evident that when subsequent versions of the game come out, they always incorporate the wishes of the gamers, and not necessarily the wishes of the programmer.

Evolution does not need to be mutually exclusive with Creationism — this is the simple untruth we’ve been fed. They can exist in harmony, in the same way that science and religion can co-exist. The purpose of science is to discover the rules of the game (and in gamer terms the “easter eggs”). Religion teaches us how to play the game together in harmony and peace — because if we cannot attain peace and harmony, we will always be a scourge on this planet.

I personally believe that there is a Creator, though I am unable by design to understand its will — I believe this is because we don’t need to know its will. And all of our religions have professed to understand the will of the Creator, yet none of them can come to common ground. It is saddening to see people killing in the name of the Creator, when just about every religion expressly forbids this. What does it gain us?

The true evil in the world is the notion that we must attain things, and if someone has more than someone else, this is somehow unfair. And that may be rightly so. But instead of getting angry that someone has more than you from a materialistic perspective, why not look at what you do have — and not as an exercise in trying to best someone else. I am not rich, but I don’t hate rich people. I don’t live in a mansion, but I don’t begrudge someone who does. If I can’t buy something the moment I want it, due to financial restriction or other, I analyze if I really need it, and if I want it, I simply wait until I can have it. Patience is not a virtue, it is a necessary aspect of life, because time only moves as fast as it moves and we cannot quicken time, no matter how we try.

The human race has become obsessed with shiny things — just as Ravens are — which means we are an ever growing Unkindness of Ravens, fluttering from store to store and hoarding these meaningless shiny objects. What we have forgotten is that its not the things, but the people in our lives that make life wonderful. Its the journey, not the destination. Each moment has its wonders, if we shed our fears and just look around. Some days, I take a moment and look up at the sky, because it is wonderful. And I am able to shed all those stupid thoughts that we all have, and just be for a moment.

I mean, no matter how rich or poor you are, you can find that one thing that makes you happy each and every day. A cup of coffee. A hug from your child. A kiss from your spouse. That first sip of wine in the evening with a wonderful meal. Some of these things you simply cannot buy, no matter how much money you have.

So did the Creator design this wonderful universe so that we can sit around playing with shiny objects? Or did was it created so that we could mold it and enjoy it — together as one people, one world, one galaxy and one universe? I think we all know the answers, but fear is what stops us from being a truly wonderful world-wide civilization.

4 thoughts on “Intelligent Design, Evolution and Creation”

You’re engaging in wishful wooly thinking. You want everyone to co-exist and be nice to each other so you assume things that would make that possible.

You don’t like conflict so you assume that all religions can co-exist “as pieces [in] the larger spiritual puzzle”. You don’t like the idea that life could be pointless so you assume that we must have a creator and free will. Your analogy with god as game designer is a bit iffy too. We’re sprites in Universe 1.0? Not much chance of being transferred to the new improved Universe 2.0 then.

You want to believe that “Religion teaches us how to play the game together in harmony and peace” . Really ? http://bit.ly/11IZjhv

And again: “just about every religion expressly forbids” “killing in the name of the creator” – Apart from the 2 billion Christians and 1.5 billion muslims who have plenty of calls in their texts to be “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer”.

Life doesn’t work that way. We’re social, acquisitive, territorial apes with all the benefits and baggage that entails. If things are going to get better the change will have to come from us, not some invisible friend in the sky.

flippertie — thank you for your thoughtful response. And I think you missed a couple of the points I was making. WE are responsible 100% for our actions and the change that needs to occur in our world. Co-existence may be wishful thinking, but we can’t simple give up on it.

No, I do not like the idea that life is pointless, because I know my life is not pointless because each day for me has a point 🙂 And my points about the Creator were merely to express that we cannot sit here and expect some cosmic good witch of the north to come and save us whenever we lack the ability to save ourselves. We must be more than apes, we must evolve. The time for religion has long since past, and we need to learn from what we’ve done wrong and realize that we are now the Creators.

And as far as religion teaching us to play in harmony, that was SUPPOSED to be its reason, but as you pointed out, which we all well know, religion has done nothing but destroy our world.

OK – perhaps we’re coming towards the same point from different directions.

The free will/predetermination debate is endless. Mentally I’m almost convinced by the predeterminist arguments – but i feel as though I have free will, and that’s good enough for me on a day-to-day basis.

On the grand scheme of things life *is* pointless. A few light years away, or a few million years from now nothing we do will make the slightest difference. Think of Carl Sagan’s small blue dot…

So the only meaning our lives can have is in the here and now. What we do and think, and how we interact with the other thinking feeling beings about us is all that matters. I don’t need to invoke any creator or guiding purpose in the universe to reach that conclusion.

And, as a social ape, what works for me is being a member in good standing of my tribe and family. I feel good when I’m valued and appreciated, by myself and by others whom I value and appreciate in return. So the best I can do is to work to that end: a healthy society based on mutual respect and co-operation. No supernatural forces involved 🙂

The idea that the here and now is the only point to life is exactly how I feel, but there are so few people who can grasp or accept that. This is a result of the way we have molded ourselves into a materialistic society — the never ending quest for money and stature.

As far as the Creator, I do not profess to know anything more than anyone else does. However, happenstance is not a suitable substitute, because we know that the universe is guided by causality. There must be a cause for there to be an effect. And again, my concept of the creator (since I am a programmer and software architect), is that all systems require rules to operate. And once that system has been designed, the architect or Creator, usually never gets involved again and leaves the creation in the hands of those it was created for.

You are very right that the only solution is that we all adopt a philosophy of respect and peaceful co-existence. I do not believe we need to invoke supernatural forces to do so, because everything we need is contained in that gray blob between our ears 😉